


Thing to Remember

by plaidventurer



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Canon, Alternate Universe, Angst and Feels, Bittersweet, F/F, First Kiss, Fluff and Angst, Headaches & Migraines, I Don't Even Know, I Tried, Last Day On Earth, Late Night Conversations, Maxine "Max" Caulfield Still Has Powers, Mild Blood, Mild Language, Minor Rachel Amber/Chloe Price, One Shot, POV Max, Teen Romance, Time Loop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-17
Updated: 2017-07-17
Packaged: 2018-12-03 06:15:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11526246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plaidventurer/pseuds/plaidventurer
Summary: You’re already losing the feeling of her lips on yours, and her warmth is dissolving, and you miss it so deeply that it hurts. Just...just one more time.Time loops are bad, until you've only got one night left to really live and you happen to have rewind powers. Max makes the best of a tough situation.





	Thing to Remember

**Author's Note:**

> Hopefully this isn't too OOC. Enjoy!

You lie back on the rusty hood with night air on your lips and moon dust collecting in the corners of her secondhand leather jacket. She’s got an arm slung tight around your shoulders. Your legs tangle together under the stars. 

The edges of the junkyard crackle with red, but you aren’t backtracking to save anyone, this time. The rubbed-raw skin across your wrists hasn’t come just yet. It won’t for another couple of days in this timeline. Neither will the fuzzy lull your brain and hands and legs fell into down there below the surface of the black and heavy dirt, beneath the Prescott barn.

You wonder if this will really change much in the grand scheme of time, just wasting a few hours out here when you intend to rewind again anyways. Probably not. But who knows, maybe you'll create a whole new separate reality from just this moment. This one midnight stargazing session might establish an entire universe that revolves around a change you made to be with your best friend.

And wouldn't that be a thing to remember.

Rachel's so close that you can almost taste the rot and decay, almost  _ feel _ the crawling of her muscles and skin as they ooze with the acid from the Dark Room, and you go from the most okayish you've been in days to on the verge of puking all over Chloe and her star-stained hair. Nausea tumbles inside you just like it did the night you dug with broken nails and white tear stains trailing down your neck to find that girl, Chloe’s girl, under the debris. The stench of death made you taste acid. 

You sort of wish you never found her. You wish a lot of things. 

Chloe will never have to dig up Rachel now, though. She deserves to know, of course she does, but...but she won’t. And maybe that’s a good thing. 

Every time her hand brushes yours and leaves a tingling feeling behind, or when she fidgets when she gets close enough for you to feel her soft breath on your bubblegum cheeks, you feel like you’re intruding. There was obviously a thing going on between Rachel and Chloe, at some point. It’s painfully obvious by the way she talks about her “angel.” And you feel like you’re sticking yourself right in the middle of it.

That’s ridiculous, of course. It’s your crush-addled brain telling you that Chloe actually would feel something towards you after years of shitty silent behavior and cowardice. You aren’t intruding in her romantic life because you were never in the picture in the first place. Hell, she might just be pretending to not be pissed at you, and this whole time she's hating or using you like a time-traveling puppet. 

You cut yourself off at that point because you've seen the future, and it contradicts every negative thought you just had. Chloe isn't like that. She wouldn't do  _ that _ .

Your bag is draped over your arm like a child’s safety blanket. Pictures are spread all over the ground where they must have slipped out when you climbed atop the car. They lay like shining evidence of some brutal crime by the flat tires and scattered rust flakes. Broken glass refracts light like a shattered disco ball. You vaguely realize that it's reminiscent of a party that hasn't even started yet, in a place you'll never go again. Not with Chloe. Not in this timeline.

You're done, after this. 

This is the first time you’ve used your powers for something wholly selfish without the excuse of rescuing someone or working for the greater good or whatever. It’s the last chance you’ll get, you muse, but that’s alright. And after this, after this one moment you’ll be able to go back and hide. You’ll press your face to the grubby tiles and listen to the  _ drip drip drip  _ of a leaky sink while the smell of gunsmoke wafts through the open vents. 

But that’s not now. Not yet. You’ve still got a little time.

Your cheeks are cold, lips chapped, and your feet have long since gone numb. The metal you are lying on is killing your back. You wonder if the oncoming migraine will drown some of that out. 

Chloe’s chattering on about some inane nonsense, creating a nice white noise to match the sparkle of the sky. You turn your head a little to see her better.

She’s smiling in that soft way that she used to when you two were young and you’d talk about your futures or adventures you would have together. And you’d ramble on for ages about how you were gonna be a big-name photographer someday, with your shit hung up in galleries across the country, and she’d look at you the same way she’s looking up at the stars now, with all the wonders of the universe reflected in her eyes.

She is pale and pink in this dim light. It’s enchanting, almost, or maybe that’s your artist’s eye. Her white shirt almost glows. Her side is warm against yours. She smells like Two Whales french toast (it must be the cinnamon) and cigarette smoke. Not like wet dirt or blood or bubbling rot, like you keep expecting. Like you keep dreading. 

You think that maybe you should take a picture, but really, it’s less about the look and more about the feeling. And boy, are you feeling now.

“Enjoying the view, Super Max?” Her voice is warm and teasing. _You’re gonna miss this, Max._ _Pay attention, Max._

You grin, and Chloe plays absently with the drawstring of your hoodie. The plastic-sealed end hits the car a few times with a soft  _ ting _ . You rest your head back against her shoulder. 

“Of what? Your armpit?” She swats at you with the string and you giggle, shielding yourself with a hand.

Her beanie is tucked under her head like a pillow, and you can see the roots of her fading blue hair showing when she finally lets up on the attack. She looks...peaceful. At ease. For a single moment, you suddenly wish that Jefferson would just find you already, end the suspense, and shoot you both here, under the stars and away from the coming storm so that you’d at least die together with a few shreds of blind joy left, but that’s  _ disgusting _ and  _ awful  _ and you should probably stop thinking that sort of shit.

It took serious work to get to this point, and you're proud of it. You mean, rewinding time just to leave your future self a note about holding a picture in exactly the right place at exactly the right time is pretty epic. It's almost like planning ahead your final moments, and in a way, it is. Your last-ever time with Chloe should be...you don't know...normal? Ordinary and carefree? It should exist for a million years in the span of a few minutes, where you can remember her as how she was without lightning or rain drowning out all your senses or a gunshot. She should be remembered as the punk who hits you with hoodie strings and tickles your ribs until you threaten to pee on her. 

Everything started with you saving Chloe. Everything must end with the butterfly, and returning to the universe what it gave back to you. It let you have this time with her. By the world sparing her life and giving you the power to save it over and over again, you've rekindled what was left of your...whatever your relationship has become, and you had some damn good adventures along the way. It's only fair, you know bitterly, that it would want her back at some point or another. The only thing is, it didn't specify when.

So you'll take this time while you have it. You'll take this time, even though you're weak all over and you've had three nosebleeds in the past day. You'll take it even if it kills you.

“Can’t we just spend the rest of our lives here?” Chloe sighs. “Just forget about all the shit that’s going on.”

“I could use my powers to make this last forever,” you say, like it’s a joke, and Chloe squeezes your arm.

“Yeah. But--and this is gonna sound like something straight out of a chick flick--what makes it special, then? If the moment never stops?” She lets out a little huff of laughter. “Besides. Only you'd remember it. And that wouldn't be fair.” 

You know it. God, you know it. All you can feel is the rise and fall of her chest, steady and safe by your cheek. The leather rubs against your face with a soft scratching noise.

You’re so, so selfish. And of course it isn’t fair. None of this is  _ fair _ . It’s a shitty ultimatum, giving up either the town or her. 

People die every day. William died, Rachel died, Nathan died, and you’ll die, someday, too. And so will Chloe. And everyone else in this fucking place. You can blind yourself to it, you know, and shut out the remembrance that by saving Chloe you will kill your future and all the people that you’ve ever known in this town. All the families, the dreamers, the children with lives and best friends, just like you and Chloe. 

 

Or you could let her go.

 

_ What makes it special, then? If the moment never stops? _

You slip your fingers in between hers on the hand that she has left draped over her stomach. She draws in a sharp breath, chest rising quickly beside you. You smile a little, and look up, and nestle closer into her warmth.

“Max,” she says, softly and so gently that it's hard to believe it's Chloe at all. 

“Chloe,” you respond, playfully, and you stroke the back of her hand with your thumb. You can almost picture the dirt left under your nail from...from Rachel.

You swallow as she hums under her breath. “Chloe, um.” Her hand is warm against yours. You wonder if this is a good idea for the billionth time tonight, but this is the doorway to a new opportunity and you can’t miss it. 

_ You’re running out of time, Max. _

“Yeah?”

“I can't say how sorry I am, and I know that won't fix anything, but...I'm here to stay, now,” you say. 

“What I did was...beyond shitty. There's no excuse, nothing that could make it okay. I guess I was afraid that I didn't know how to help you, when William died, or what to say, or anything. It just got harder and harder to pick up the phone.” 

Chloe exhales, and looks up at the night sky, and her pulse thuds with a  _ thumpthumpthump _ against the small webs of skin between your fingers.

“It’s okay, Max.” She breathes in, lets it out. “I get it. What you did sucked.” 

You don't wince this time. Not like the last time, or the one before that--and she stops for a minute, contemplating.

“But you’re back now, and you’ve got awesome-as-fuck superpowers like some kind of badass. That’s hella cool, dude.” 

You smile, and it’s just like the first time. 

“I guess. But it’s just...I don’t know when it’ll stop, you know? Like...what if I’m careless and something happens and my powers just don’t work anymore?” It’s terrifying, and you’ve been testing that idea all night. It makes the possibility all too real.

 

_ What if it stops now? What if we get stuck? _

 

“Then we just stick to playing it safe,” Chloe says after a pause, and you huff a small laugh.

“Yeah. Like you ever play anything safe.”

She punches you lightly in the arm, and you both lapse into silence. 

“I missed you,” you say softly after a minute, because if you’re going to do it, it has to be now. The red is closing in far too fast. You roll over so that you almost block the moonlight, but just enough of it slips around your shoulders to illuminate Chloe’s surprised face when you reach out a hand.

And you lean in, and she searches your face, and you kiss her.

Trees rustle all around the two of you, and for a moment, you forget everything about Rachel and Mr. Jefferson and the fact that you won’t know what comes after this because you’ve created a loop for yourself that probably ends with a permanent blackout. Metal creaks under your knees and you feel night wind on the back of your neck before Chloe reaches up to pull you just a little closer.

“I missed you, too,” she breathes against your mouth, and you grin with the taste of her starlight on your lips. She glows, just like the first time, but it still feels just as new and your pulse still rockets up somewhere in the atmosphere. It’s elation in its purest form. Even when the red begins to burn holes through the world around you, and your headache turns up the heat. You fall over onto your back again and curl up close against her side.

Well, if you get stuck, and if your powers stop working now, at least you’ll have had this moment with her.

You stare up at the stars, swallow your guilt, and bury your doubt under the way she kissed you back. Your nose is bleeding again. You wanted an adventure, after all. And maybe she isn’t sure why you’re being so sappy all of a sudden, but of course, she doesn’t know that you’ve gotten to know her better in five days then maybe your entire life. And she doesn’t know that this is the very last night, and the very last chance. Probably for both of you.

And the bubbling holes fold in like blood and tunnel vision, ready to take you back in time, but you stop it at the last second.

 

With a breath, you stop it.

 

With another, you concentrate.

 

You’re already losing the feeling of her lips on yours, and her warmth is dissolving, and you miss it so deeply that it hurts. Just...just one more time.

  
  
  


 

You lie back on the rusty hood with night air on your lips and moon dust collecting in the corners of her secondhand leather jacket. She’s got an arm slung tight around your shoulders. Your legs tangle together under the stars. 

The edges of the junkyard crackle with red, but you aren’t backtracking to save anyone, this time. The rubbed-raw skin across your wrists hasn’t come just yet. It won’t for another couple of days in this timeline. Neither will the fuzzy lull your brain and hands and legs fell into down there below the surface of the black and heavy dirt, beneath the Prescott barn.

You wonder if this will really change much in the grand scheme of time, just wasting a few hours out here when you intend to rewind again anyways. Probably not. But who knows, maybe you'll create a whole new separate reality from just this moment. This one midnight stargazing session might establish an entire universe that revolves around a change you made to be with your best friend.

 

 

And wouldn't that be a thing to remember.

 


End file.
